Chapter 128: Post-war reconstruction! Bronze Peak, one step away!

"Master."

Martina walked to his side; her snow-white long dress was already stained with blood and dust, and her snow-white long hair, which was usually meticulous, also appeared somewhat messy.

Her white eyes carried a hint of fatigue, but more than that, a kind of relief from surviving a disaster.

"Are the statistics out?"

Roko asked softly.

"They are."

Martina's voice was a bit hoarse.

"Our defending military and civilians suffered 1,243 deaths, and over 2,000 were injured; among them, Talos is the most severely injured. Although he was saved, I'm afraid it will be difficult for him to recover to his peak period."

Speaking of this, Martina's eyes turned slightly red.

That Minotaur, who was always like an iron tower and always smiling honestly, had used his body to block the Bishop's "Holy Light Judgment" to plug the gap in the city gate, resulting in multiple fractures of his skeleton and severe shock to his internal organs.

Roko's fists clenched involuntarily.

"What about the spoils?"

He suppressed the emotions in his heart and continued to ask.

"The spoils are very rich."

Martina's emotions also calmed down a bit, and she returned to the calmness of a Chief Administrative Officer.

"We wiped out the Light Temple's five hundred 'Purification Army' troops and captured 172 people, including Bishop Marcus."

"We seized their full set of standard armor and weapons; the sophistication of this equipment far exceeds our existing equipment."

"There are also large amounts of gold coins, grain, and various supply materials, enough to support us for a long time."

"Most importantly, we seized that holy relic, the 'First Saint's Tear'."

This was a tragic victory, but the gains were enough to make up for most of the losses.

"How is Zewen's side?"

"The brothers of Red Leaf Forest also suffered heavy casualties; Leader Zewen himself was not lightly injured while confronting Valerius, but there is no danger to his life. I have already arranged for the best physicians to treat them."

Roko nodded.

"Pass my order: all soldiers who died in battle are to be buried with the highest standards of honor, death benefits are to be paid at three times the highest standard, and their families will be supported by the Lord's Mansion forever."

"All injured soldiers are to be treated at any cost."

"I will go see Talos personally."

"Yes, Master."

Martina replied.

She knew that these measures were enough to make everyone who had bled for Vanguard Valley feel at ease.

After dealing with these urgent matters, a new problem was placed in front of them.

How to deal with those hundred-plus Temple captives.

By evening, the square of the Lord's Mansion was crowded with angry residents.

Their faces still carried the sorrow of losing their loved ones.

"Kill them!"

"Execute these executioners!"

"Use their blood to sacrifice to our dead relatives!"

Angry roars rose one after another.

Many residents held stones and mud in their hands, smashing them fiercely at the Temple captives who were tied up and kneeling on the ground.

If it weren't for the guards blocking them, they would probably have rushed up and torn these captives into pieces.

Martina stood on the steps of the Lord's Mansion, looking at this scene of public indignation, her brows tightly knitted.

From a rational point of view, these captives, especially those ordinary Temple Knights, were valuable labor.

Killing them, besides venting anger, had no benefits.

Sentencing them to hard labor to repair city walls and reclaim wasteland would maximize their value.

But she also knew that the anger of the residents at this moment could not be suppressed by reason.

Forcibly protecting these captives would only cause a backlash in public opinion.

Just when she was in a dilemma, Roko walked out of the Lord's Mansion.

As soon as he appeared, the noise in the square gradually subsided.

All eyes converged on him.

In those eyes, there was worship, awe, and expectation.

Roko didn't speak, just walked down the steps silently and came to the captives.

He drew the longsword from his waist; on the blade, there were still undried bloodstains.

He walked to Bishop Marcus.

This Bishop, who had been arrogant before, was now covered in wounds, tied with thick iron chains, and in a wretched state.

But he still held his head high, his face carrying a kind of twisted arrogance.

"Heretic! If you kill me, the Light Temple will not let you go!"

"The great God of Light will eventually judge all your crimes!"

He roared.

Roko's face showed no expression.

He just raised the longsword in his hand.

Then, he swung it down.

"Pfft!"

A fine head soared into the sky.

Blood stained the ground of the square red.

Bishop Marcus's headless corpse swayed, then collapsed heavily.

The entire square fell into a deathly silence.

Everyone was shocked by Roko's crisp and neat action.

Roko didn't stop.

He walked to those Temple Knights who had been identified as the most brutal and murderous in the battle.

Hand up, sword down.

One head after another rolled to the ground.

He executed more than a dozen of the most heinous core members in a row.

Until the most intense hatred in the residents' eyes gradually dissipated, replaced by a kind of awe.

He then stopped.

He sheathed his blood-stained longsword.

Then, he turned to face all the residents.

"The chief culprits have been executed!"

His voice spread across the entire square.

"As for the rest, death is too easy for them!"

"They destroyed our city wall, so let them use their own hands to rebuild it!"

"They killed our compatriots, so let them use the rest of their lives to shed every last drop of sweat for the construction of Vanguard Valley!"

"I announce that all Temple captives are to be sentenced to hard labor for life, with no pardon!"

Hearing Roko's verdict, the residents were stunned for a moment, then erupted into even more enthusiastic cheers.

Compared to killing these enemies with one sword strike, making them work like livestock until they died of exhaustion seemed to be a better punishment.

A crisis that could have triggered internal conflict was resolved by Roko in the most direct and effective way.

Martina looked at Roko's back, strange light flashing in her white eyes.

Over the next few days, the entire Vanguard Valley carried out post-war reconstruction work in a tragic yet hopeful atmosphere.

Martina announced detailed compensation and reconstruction plans, each of which was implemented, greatly soothing the public heart.

Zewen also left with the Red Leaf Forest troops, whose injuries were improving.

Before leaving, he had a secret long talk with Roko for a whole night.

After this battle, Vanguard Valley and Red Leaf Forest had formed an unbreakable blood alliance.

After dealing with the various affairs of the territory, Roko finally had time to catch his breath.

He locked himself in the secret chamber of the Lord's Mansion.

That extreme battle had benefited him greatly.

He could clearly feel that the Battle Qi in his body had reached a critical point, and he was only one step away from the Bronze Peak.

He needed a period of seclusion to digest the gains from the battle and completely stabilize his realm.

At the same time, he also had to study the biggest trophy.

"First Saint's Tear."

He took the crystal the size of a fist out of his Space Ring.

The crystal still emitted a gentle and pure Holy Light, as if it possessed life.

【Ding! Special energy item "First Saint's Tear" detected, absorb?】

The system's prompt sounded again.

"Do not absorb."

Roko muttered in his heart.

He tried to slowly inject a trace of his 【Flame Griffin Breathing Method】 Battle Qi into the crystal.

The moment the golden flame Battle Qi came into contact with the crystal, it immediately caused a violent rebound of the Holy Light inside the crystal.

Two completely different energies repelled each other and conflicted with each other.

Roko's face turned slightly pale.

But he didn't give up.

He remembered the scene where the holy relic's energy shield shattered after being hit by the magic-breaking crossbow bolt during the battle.

This showed that the holy relic's energy was not unbreakable.

He calmed his heart and no longer tried to forcibly inject his Battle Qi into it, but instead used his Spiritual Power to cautiously perceive the internal structure of the crystal.

Under his Spiritual Power probe, he was surprised to find:

The core of this "First Saint's Tear" was not producing Holy Light, but an extremely complex and precise energy conversion array.

Its function was to absorb free energy from the outside world, then purify and convert it, eventually turning it into pure Holy Light power.

"Purifying energy..."

A flash of realization crossed Roko's eyes.

Since it could purify external energy, could it also purify his own Battle Qi?

A bold idea popped into his mind.

He no longer injected his Battle Qi directly into the crystal, but used his Battle Qi to wrap the entire crystal,

and then, he pushed the 【Flame Griffin Breathing Method】 to its limit, simulating the operation mode of the energy conversion array inside the crystal.

This was very difficult.

It required extremely exquisite control over one's own energy.

But Roko did it.

Under his control, his golden flame Battle Qi began to flow slowly over the surface of the crystal at a specific frequency.

A wonderful thing happened.

The Holy Light inside the crystal didn't produce a strong repulsion this time.

Instead, under the guidance of Roko's Battle Qi, the array at the core of the crystal was passively activated.

Strands of golden flame Battle Qi were sucked into it by the array.

After being purified and converted by the array, they were fed back out.

Although the total amount of the fed-back flame Battle Qi was reduced by nearly half, its purity was increased by several times!

The originally somewhat impure Battle Qi became like the purest golden crystal, crystal clear.

"Success!"

Roko was overjoyed.

He had discovered an unprecedented shortcut to accelerate his cultivation!

Although this holy relic was something from the Light Temple, filled with Holy Light power, and its attributes were opposite to his flame Battle Qi.

But as long as it was used properly, it could become a powerful booster for his strength to improve rapidly!

Just when Roko was immersed in the joy of discovering a new world.

A burst of urgent knocking on the door interrupted his cultivation.

"Master, Scout Captain Bake has urgent intelligence to report!"

It was Martina's voice.

Roko put away the "First Saint's Tear" and opened the door to the secret chamber.

He saw Bake standing outside the door, dusty and tired, his face carrying a hint of solemnity and anxiety.

"Master, Falco has sent news!"

"What news?"

Roko's heart tightened.

According to the plan, Falco should have returned to Vanguard Valley immediately after mediating the conflict between the dwarf tribes.

But until now, he hadn't returned.

Roko had been worried about whether he had encountered any accidents.

"Falco said that in the Dwarf Mountains, he discovered the Fire Beard Tribe secretly meeting with a group of mysterious people."

Bake said in a deep voice.

"And those mysterious people all carried this mark!"

As he spoke, Bake handed over a piece of paper.

On the paper, a lifelike black scorpion was drawn.

Scorpion Society!

Roko's pupils shrank suddenly.

The candle flame in the secret chamber flickered gently.

Roko rubbed the paper with the black scorpion pattern with his fingers, his eyes becoming abnormally cold.

Scorpion Society.

This organization that wouldn't go away was like a poisonous snake lurking in the shadows, always giving people a fatal blow in the most unexpected places.

"What were Falco's exact words?"

Roko asked in a deep voice.

"Falco said in the letter that after he arrived at the Stone Hammer Tribe, he wanted to immediately mediate their conflict with the Fire Beard Tribe, but the Fire Beard Tribe's attitude was abnormally tough and didn't give any chance for negotiation."

Bake recalled the content of the letter and reported in detail.

"He felt something was fishy, so he and Young Master Mike secretly started an investigation."

Time was pulled back to the Dwarf Mountains a few days ago.

Falco took Roko's goodwill, as well as several large barrels of top-tier spirits, and came to the territory of the Fire Beard Tribe together with Patriarch Bagelumu.

However, what greeted them was not the generosity and enthusiasm that dwarves should have.

But cold battle axes and hostile eyes.

The Fire Beard Tribe's patriarch, Fire Melt, a grumpy dwarf with half his beard burned off, directly turned them away.

"Get out! We dwarves don't need you humans to interfere in our affairs!"

"Bagelumu! You dwarf traitor who betrayed your ancestors! Actually colluding with humans! You still have the face to come back!"

Fire Melt's roar echoed in the valley.

Falco keenly noticed that the warriors of the Fire Beard Tribe, although they looked aggressive, had a hint of abnormal fanaticism in the depths of their eyes.

Moreover, the weapons in their hands seemed to be more sophisticated than rumored.

Falco, who had been turned away, didn't get discouraged.

He knew that frontal negotiation was no longer possible.

So, he thought of a way to save the country by a curve.

He asked Mike to take out the family token of his father, Earl Adrian.

Although Mike's family couldn't be considered a first-class noble on the western border, Earl Adrian himself had quite a reputation in some neutral dwarf tribes because he had been doing ore business with dwarves for many years.

Sure enough, relying on this token, as well as a few barrels of fine wine as a stepping stone.

Falco successfully made contact with a small neutral tribe. ===== CHAPTER 129 =====